Chapter 2: Detention in the Dungeons
Draco
Why was that Weasley girl following him?
Draco frets with the silver clasps on his cloak, and pulls it tighter around his shoulders. Potter must suspect something. Draco scowls. Perfect Potter, always saving the day.
Not this time.
He got him good on the train, bloodied his nose. Too bad somebody found him sooner rather than later, otherwise he would have gone all the way back to King's Cross that night.c
Anyway, Draco has bigger things to think about now, and even if Potter does suspect something, he hasn't got any proof. There's nothing to link Draco to the incident with Katie Bell.
He's standing on the third-floor balcony in the fading twilight, his breath steaming in the darkness. The Slytherin common room was stuffy and crowded. He needed some air. These days, it's getting harder to listen to his housemates banter about homework and teacher favoritism, speculate about Quidditch or who's shagged whom in the prefect bathroom. All these things that have made up the last six years of his student life have become laughably pale and inconsequential.
He looks down onto the grounds below. The last of the snow is melting into murky puddles, and there is a heavy, cold mist hanging over the castle. There is no moon tonight; the sky is obscured by dark grey clouds. His sleeve is rolled up, and Draco lights the tip of his wand to see the Dark Mark on his pale forearm. He can feel it sometimes. Like it's alive, separate from his body. The serpent and skull shine against his white skin.
Draco pulls down his sleeve and buttons the cuff. He's shivering. He turns around and walks back into the warm glow of the castle.
He has detention in the dungeons, but he makes a detour to the seventh floor. There are students lingering along the hallway, so he doesn't stop. Instead, he walks by the entrance to the Room of Requirement, his pulse quickening. It's a bare wall, the weathered stone no different from its surroundings, yet it may as well glow like a beacon as he walks past. The Vanishing Cabinet within is still broken. He needs to fix it. He's running out of time.
His heart is beating too fast, and he takes a deep breath to calm down, clenching and unclenching his fists. Draco hurries past the stretch of wall. He pushes the cabinet out of his mind and continues down to the dungeons for detention with Filch.
Snape offered to take over Draco's detention, but he sidestepped the Potion Master's attempts. He doesn't want to spend the evening dodging questions. Snape is dying to know his plan, probably to take the credit for himself. Draco won't allow it. This is his work, his idea. Nobody can figure out how to get the best of Dumbledore, how to get past Hogwarts' defensive spells, but he's figured it out.
Draco will fulfill the Dark Lord's wishes. The Dark Lord chose him, honoured him - whatever they all think. He knows the others say he's too young, too weak, but he'll show them all, and he'll bring the Malfoy name back into a place of honour. He will do it, not Snape.
The Weasley girl is already there at the bottom of the staircase, and so is Filch. "Come on," says the squib when he catches sight of Draco. "Come on, follow me."
They're in the dungeons near the Slytherin common room where Filch accosted them yesterday, where Weasley caught him unaware and disarmed him. She started this whole detention mess. As if he's got nothing better to do than clear the dungeons of dugbogs.
Draco's brows knit in frustration. Why was she following him? He needs to find out what Potter knows.
They trail Filch deeper into the dungeons, into the labyrinths where students rarely go. There are a few unused rooms here, some dusty portraits on the walls, and Merlin knows what else breathing in the darkness. Maybe this is where the house elves live, or where all their laundry goes. Hogwarts is huge, and it seems to continue downwards just as much as it towers upwards.
Draco knows that somewhere down here there's a tunnel out of the castle leading out to the lake where the merpeople live. Sometimes the lake swells and floods, and the dungeons get humid, and the air in the Slytherin common room gets muggy - usually in the springtime during heavy rains. He's heard that if you follow the branching corridors deep enough, you'll find an underground entrance through the lake.
Nobody comes down here, though, so far beneath the school, except for couples looking for some privacy. It's dank and cold down here, and Draco wraps his cloak around him to keep warm. Weasley does the same. Her hair shines in the torchlight. She's walking ahead of him, behind Filch. Enchanted torches light their way, but the lamps get fewer and farther between as they continue downwards, until the sound of rushing water and the a terrible wafting smell of old fish overwhelms them.
"Ugh!" Draco holds his nose. "What's that smell? It's disgusting."
Weasley doesn't say anything, but wrinkles her nose.
Filch stops in a poorly-lit corridor reeking of fish. Along the stone walls, Draco can see the dead dugbogs all piled up against the walls where flood waters brought them the previous spring, then abandoned them as the water receded.
"You two'll clean these up. Zap them gone," Filch says. "These corridors will be flooding again in a few weeks, and I want these old rotting things cleared away before then. Once it's all done, I'll come down to check your work. Should take you a few hours." His face is streaked grey and orange in the dark, and he is giddy with the prospect of giving them this useless, tedious task.
"What's the point, though, of cleaning up dead dugbogs?" asks Weasley before Draco can do it. "Nobody goes down here anyway."
"Don't you go questioning me, girl. I have my reasons," says Filch in a nasty voice. "You'll clean them good and well. I'll see to you in a few hours, and if you've done your job, you can go to sleep." Filch grins, "And if you've not, you'll just have to sleep down here with the dugbogs." With that, he turns around and shuffles back the way he came, and his footsteps soon fade into the shadows.
The stench of old fish is revolting.
Draco is still holding nose. "This is absurd," he says.
The Weasley girl frowns. She has freckles all along the bridge of her nose, on her cheeks, even on her forehead. Draco has never seen anyone with so many freckles.
Her eyes narrow as she surveys the dugbogs. "We'll need a spell to get rid of them," she mutters to herself.
Draco doesn't say anything, studying her with a frown. He saw her yesterday at Quidditch practice. He was looking down on the Quidditch pitch from one of the terraces, thinking about the cabinet, but also needing a distraction. He watched Potter and the Gryffindor team doing their drills. Weasley – her brother – made an absolute arse of himself. But she wasn't bad. What was her name? Ginny?
"Malfoy," she says again. "Are you deaf? I said we need a spell to get rid of all these dugbogs. We need to hurry up before I hurl."
"Don't order me around," Draco sneers. "Do it yourself." He pauses for a second before continuing: "Tell me, Weasley, do you like being a blood traitor?" He decides to rile her up. It's her fault they're down here, and the Weasleys all flare up so easily. He wonders if her whole face will flush bright red just like the rest of her kin. "You know Weasley, your kind will be imprisoned soon enough, when the Dark Lord gains back his full power."
But she barely reacts. "Just shut up," she says quietly, not taking the bait. She holds up her wand, thinking.
He pulls out his own wand where she can see it. "I won't be caught off-guard again. Don't try anything."
She ignores him. "Expulso!" she yells, and a dugbog explodes into a splatter on the stone floor.
Draco retches. The smell is awful. "Ugh…Weasley. I can't breathe."
"Do you know a better spell, Malfoy? Because I don't plan on spending my night down here."
Draco wracks his brain. He doesn't know a better spell. "Expulso!" he shouts, and another dugbog explodes. The smell is unbearable. Draco raises his wand again. "Seplasium!" he shouts, and a mild flowery scent fills the corridor; the stench still hovers beneath the perfume, but he's taken the edge off.
Weasley throws him an approving look. "I'll burst them, you wash them away," she suggests.
"I don't take orders from peasants," he smirks.
Weasley glares at him. "Oh, will you shut it already! I'm not doing this alone, Malfoy, and I don't want to spend more time down here with you than absolutely necessary."
"Fine," says Draco. "We'll do it your way. You're obviously experienced in cleaning up disgusting messes, what with all the Weasleys living in squalor, so I will defer to your judgment." He smirks again, and before she can retort, sprays the slimy mess with a stream of water from his wand.
They make their way through the dead creatures rotting alongside the dungeon walls. The trail of them seems never-ending.
Draco feels drained. The lateness of the hour is pressing in on him. He didn't sleep well last night. Hell, he can't remember the last time he slept well. He's always trying to sneak away to fix those damn cabinets.
He looks up to see that Weasley has walked ahead of him down the narrow corridor. "Why were you following me?" he calls after her. His voice sounds too-loud in the darkness after the long silence. He hadn't planned to interrogate her like this, but what better time to get information than here in the dungeons with nobody to listen in, nobody to protect her.
"I wasn't following you," she shouts back, annoyed, but she stops walking and waits for him to catch up.
"Look Weasley, we both know you're lying. I spotted you right away. You followed me down three floors. I even heard you cast a Muffiato spell. So don't play games." He stares her down, his lip curled, his expression as menacing as possible. "Just tell me what you were doing, all right Weasley?"
She looks at him, thinking.
"Did Potter send you?" he presses. "Because he's got no business, and I will tell …" Draco's voice falters. Normally, he would say I will tell my father about this or I will tell the Headmaster, but both options cause something like panic to rise in his chest.
Ginny frowns at him. "Were you actually crying?"
Draco jerks back and scoffs. He can feel the heat rising in his cheeks, and he hopes she doesn't notice. "Is that what you think?" he exhales. He hates the way she asked, not like she was mocking him, but with a hint of pity in her voice. "I wasn't…fucking crying Weasley." He tries to laugh, to shrug her off.
She stares right back at him, refusing to break eye contact. Her red hair is fizzing in the damp air, and her eyes are wide-open brown, full of curiosity. "I know you're up to something," she insists. "I'll find out. Harry'll find out. It's only a matter of time, Malfoy."
"There's nothing to find out." He pushes past her into the corridor. The ceiling is lower here, and the torches along the walls are spread farther apart so that he can barely see into the darkness ahead. Draco shoots one exploding spell after another. It feels good – to hear the fishy beasts incinerate. He hurries forward, taking long strides.
But she's right behind him. He can hear her footsteps an inch away.
"What were you doing yesterday when you ran into me?" she demands. "I know you were up to something."
"I'm not up to anything." He forces his mouth into a sneer. "Is that why we're here? Is that why we have detention?" He leans in, bringing his face close to hers again. "I'm not up to anything, Weasley, but the Dark Lord is rising. He's getting more powerful every day. Maybe that's what you should be worried about. You may not be a Mudblood, Weasley, but you're even worse. You're a disgrace to magic. You know that, don't you?"
He's finally gotten to her. He can tell by the way her whole body tenses up, her breath quickening in anger. Her face might be bright Weasley red, but it's gotten too dark to see properly. She is scowling though, and she looks like she might hex him, so he grabs her wrist again. That seemed to throw her off yesterday.
She doesn't shake him off, but stares resolutely into his eyes. "Maybe you won't admit it, but I know you're up to something Malfoy, and I'm not too worried. You're not smart enough to accomplish anything worth worrying over. You can't even throw a proper hex."
The blood rushes back to his face. Draco grips his wand, but she's already holding her own wand against his chest.
He turns around instead and storms down the corridor.
The stupid bint. She should keep her filthy Muggle-loving mouth shut.
But he can't help the spiral of self-doubt from rising like bile, choking him with panic. What if she's right, though? What if you're just not good enough? You can't fix the cabinets. It won't work. It's not working. You'll be killed.
"Malfoy, wait! Stop!"
He doesn't listen, pounding down the corridor, forgetting the dugbogs altogether, needing to get away.
Weasley's voice echoes behind him, "Malfoy, you've got to stop with the water. It's too much," she calls, her splashing footsteps coming closer.
He slows down, catching his breath. Draco realizes that his shoes are wet, and the water is ankle-deep and rising. "It's not me," he says. "I stopped washing away the dugbogs ages ago. It must be coming from the lake." The fishy, perfumed odour has been diluted with the cold smell of lake water. "We must have gone too far down."
Her sloshing footsteps are nearby. "We need to go back," she says, approaching him.
He realizes that he can hear Weasley, but he can barely make out her silhouette beside him. The torches that lined the walls ended several feet ago.
"Lumos," he says.
He sees her face close to his, bluey-orange in the wand-light. "Are you mad?" she shouts above the rush of water. The noisy, shallow current is echoing off the stone walls. "You almost broke into a run back there. I barely caught up with you."
"I wasn't crying," he says, needing suddenly to explain. "I don't know what you think you saw, but I was tired and in a hurry, and that's all. Do you understand?"
Weasley stares at him in disbelief. "What's going on, Malfoy?" Her voice is strange. It's grown somehow softer.
And she is very pretty.
The thought slips in quietly through a barrier in his brain, but now that it's through, it unfurls inside his head and he cannot quite push it back out.
She's been dating Dean Thomas, but everyone knows she'll end up with Potter eventually. She's his best friend's sister, and she's a shameless blood traitor. They're perfect for each other. They're both eager to bow-down to the stupidest Muggles and lowliest creatures at the expense of the Wizarding world.
But Draco can't deny she's pretty. When she walks down the hallways, you'd have to be blind not to notice.
